But anyway. Beck confirms what any sane person would say, and Junpei kicks his heel into the couch from his perch.]
When I told you I met Carlos because of a work thing, that was true...for me. He was here for a whole other reason. We met at Dcom...it was a Mars mission test site out in the middle of the Nevada desert. It was a special simulation test that only ten people were picked for. They offered us $500,000 to complete it, and that's why Carlos was there.
[He doesn't feel like he has to say that he wasn't there for the money.] We were there starting from Christmas Day until about five days later...turns out the whole thing was a trap. We were all kidnapped and locked in a bomb shelter on New Year's Eve and split into three teams. Carlos and I were on C-Team. There was also D-Team and Q-Team.
...the Decision Game was a game designed to determine the fate of humanity. If we didn't play, 75% of the earth's population would die. But in order to leave, we needed to obtain six X-Passes. To obtain an X-pass, a player had to die. We were split into teams in what we thought were separate wards, playing against each other and going through these insane puzzles designed to kill us. A lot of them did. Sometimes we died other ways. Sometimes we killed each other.
[He holds up his left wrist then, rotating his watch toward her.] But after ninety minutes, no matter what, our bracelets would inject us with a tranquilizer that would force us to sleep and erase our memories from the last ninety minutes. Time would pass, and when we woke up, we wouldn't remember what had happened.
...we learned how to SHIFT in the shelter so that we could escape the timelines where one or more of us died and get to the one history we all lived. [He's just. Gonna let that sink in.]
[That's... a lot, but she tries her best to listen and take it in as well as she can. She also looks fairly horrified as he gets into the more disturbing aspects of the situation, but!!]
So - I'm guessing SHIFTing was, like, going back in time somehow...?
It's not exactly going back in time, but more like moving fluidly through it to different points. In order to SHIFT, you have to be in a deadly amount of danger. While our consciences still live on, the bodies we leave behind end up dying and so do the other versions of ourselves. There have been timelines where we've been shot, poisoned, melted, exploded...[...not great!]
Carlos is the one who figured out SHIFTing first. Once we learned from him, the others started catching on and we were able to jump timelines to get to the one where we were all still alive. Or, at least, according to Carlos. I never made it that far...I was in the middle of the SHIFT when we woke up here.
Yeah. It helps a little, even if I don't get why it happened that way. [But he stares straight ahead.]
...for a while, we didn't remember the other timelines because of the injections at the end of each round. But once we figured out a way to make it stop, they started coming back over time. I think I just...[He shrugs.]
I told you before, I think. My cases weren't exactly clean either. Maybe I'm finally more numb to it than I thought.
Yeah. [...he just rubs a hand over his face, bringing more attention to the bags under his eyes.] But it doesn't really stop. This place kinda proves that.
We have a religious fanatic to catch. Someone who's going to start a nuclear war and kill 8 billion people. Because of the timeline we escaped to, that's the price we're paying.
[He's at least worked that much out based on what he remembers and Carlos telling him they made it to that history where they were all alive.]
Yeah. Maybe. [...he doesn't sound confident either.] Hey, I'm really sorry but...I think I need to go for a while. [He knows he asked to come here, but he's getting stuck in a cycle of thought he'd rather not deal with in front of another person.]
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uncurtained) wrote2019-10-04 08:24 am
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But anyway. Beck confirms what any sane person would say, and Junpei kicks his heel into the couch from his perch.]
When I told you I met Carlos because of a work thing, that was true...for me. He was here for a whole other reason. We met at Dcom...it was a Mars mission test site out in the middle of the Nevada desert. It was a special simulation test that only ten people were picked for. They offered us $500,000 to complete it, and that's why Carlos was there.
[He doesn't feel like he has to say that he wasn't there for the money.] We were there starting from Christmas Day until about five days later...turns out the whole thing was a trap. We were all kidnapped and locked in a bomb shelter on New Year's Eve and split into three teams. Carlos and I were on C-Team. There was also D-Team and Q-Team.
...the Decision Game was a game designed to determine the fate of humanity. If we didn't play, 75% of the earth's population would die. But in order to leave, we needed to obtain six X-Passes. To obtain an X-pass, a player had to die. We were split into teams in what we thought were separate wards, playing against each other and going through these insane puzzles designed to kill us. A lot of them did. Sometimes we died other ways. Sometimes we killed each other.
[He holds up his left wrist then, rotating his watch toward her.] But after ninety minutes, no matter what, our bracelets would inject us with a tranquilizer that would force us to sleep and erase our memories from the last ninety minutes. Time would pass, and when we woke up, we wouldn't remember what had happened.
...we learned how to SHIFT in the shelter so that we could escape the timelines where one or more of us died and get to the one history we all lived. [He's just. Gonna let that sink in.]
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So - I'm guessing SHIFTing was, like, going back in time somehow...?
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Carlos is the one who figured out SHIFTing first. Once we learned from him, the others started catching on and we were able to jump timelines to get to the one where we were all still alive. Or, at least, according to Carlos. I never made it that far...I was in the middle of the SHIFT when we woke up here.
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[Which isn't to say the rest of that isn't awful.]
Seeing all that, though... I can't imagine how hard it must have been.
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...for a while, we didn't remember the other timelines because of the injections at the end of each round. But once we figured out a way to make it stop, they started coming back over time. I think I just...[He shrugs.]
I told you before, I think. My cases weren't exactly clean either. Maybe I'm finally more numb to it than I thought.
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I don't think anyone would blame you if you were tired of all of it by now.
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[Not that she was going through anything as intense as he was before she arrived.]
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What's the first thing you're going to do?
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[This isn't even a laughable thing.]
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[He will just have to convince Akane to bring him along to Crash Keys. Simple.]
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[He's at least worked that much out based on what he remembers and Carlos telling him they made it to that history where they were all alive.]
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Holy shit.
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[It comes out as a question more than anything else.]
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...Yeah, of course. Take as much time as you need.
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